It’s been a while since we saw a West Ham player in one of these lists- perhaps not surprising given the club’s indifferent form over the last few weeks. However the Hammers’ shock 1-0 win over Spurs on Saturday afternoon, which made them the first team to win at the new Tottenham Stadium, saw a number of strong performances, and several players have been rewarded with spots in the Team of the Week for GW36.

There’s a West Ham player in virtually every pundit’s Team of the Week bar Robbie Savage’s. Issa Diop, who was re-united with Fabian Balbuena in the centre of defence, and Michail Antonio, who scored the winner, were the most prominent ones, but there was room for a few other players as well.

West Ham became the first visiting team to win at the new Spurs stadium as they secured their first away league triumph of 2019 on Saturday afternoon. Michail Antonio’s fine finish midway through the second half gave the Hammers all three points against Mauricio Pochettino’s men.

Here are our talking points from the game.

Balbuena and Diop re-united: After a long time, Fabian Balbuena and Issa Diop together played as a central defensive pair. The pairing between the Paraguayan and the young French star has been one of the bright points of West Ham’s season, and they were fantastic today as the Hammers secured a rare clean sheet. Balbuena denied Vincent Janssen a late equaliser with his clearance off the line, while Diop almost scored a great individual goal, striding from his own half into the opposition box, but was denied by Lloris.

Angelo Ogbonna has his moments, but tends to be inconsistent. Balbuena and Diop are clearly the way forward.

First away team to win at the New Spurs stadium: West Ham became the first away team to win at the new Spurs stadium, and Antonio’s goal was the first the Lilywhites have conceded at this ground. Nice little pub trivia stat in favour of the Hammers, who were also the first team to win against Arsenal at the Emirates.

All the more remarkable given that the Hammers had taken just one point from 8 league games on the road prior to this clash. [Read more…]

West Ham will be looking to become the first team to take points off Tottenham Hotspur at their new stadium when the two teams do battle on Saturday afternoon. Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino will have one eye on their upcoming Champions League semi-final against Ajax, but will also be aware that a loss here could give their rivals renewed hope in the top four race. The third place Lilywhites hold a three point advantage over fourth place Chelsea, who will be squaring off against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Man Utd this weekend.

The Hammers lost the reverse fixture earlier this season, although Spurs could perhaps count themselves lucky to emerge with all three points on that occasion.

Let’s take a look at what the pundits have to say about this GW36 clash.

Mark Lawrenson: Lawro notes that the midweek results worked out perfectly for Spurs- they beat Brighton while United and Arsenal both lost. Feels West Ham “carry a threat but are inconsistent” and backs Mauricio Pochettino’s men to win 2-1. [Read more…]

The referee for Wednesday evening’s EFL Cup clash between West Ham and Tottenham at the London Stadium has been announced, and it’s Stuart Attwell, who also presided over the Hammers’ 2-1 loss at home to Bournemouth in the second week of the Premier League back in August.

West Ham are winless in their last three games under Attwell- apart from the loss to the Cherries mentioned above, they were also beaten 4-1 at Anfield in February and drew 1-1 with Burnley in October last year. Attwell has refereed five Premier League games so far in this 18/19 season- West Ham were the only home team to lose. [Read more…]

Another disappointing result despite perhaps playing the better football of the two sides- that’s been the story for most of this season for Manuel Pellegrini’s West Ham. Fans will count several games- Arsenal, Chelsea, Brighton and now Spurs, where the Irons deserved much more. Some would argue they played well enough to take 12 points from these four games, but the fact remains that they’ve taken only one, and find themselves stranded deep in the bottom half of the table with only 7 points to show for their efforts so far. Perhaps it should’ve been expected- the Hammers were winless in their last five at home under Martin Atkinson, the ref for the Spurs clash.

On the positive side, West Ham have now played five of the current Premier League “big” six in their opening nine games. Their next set of games appears to be far easier, but does Pellegrini have the personnel to do the job? The latest person to join the casualty ward was Andriy Yarmolenko, who ruptured his Achilles and joins a growing long term injury list which already contains the likes of Sanchez, Wilshere, Lanzini, Carroll and Reid. It’s not quite crisis time, but the rising amount of injuries will worry West Ham’s Chilean gaffer. [Read more…]